LitPick Review
Age at time of review - 15
Reviewer's Location -
Yardley,
Pennsylvania ,
United States
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Wild Boy by Rob-Lloyd Jones flares to life in the slums of London, when a hatchet-faced stranger raps on the workhouse door with an unusual request: Augustus Finch, slavering proprietor of London’s most notorious freak show, is demanding a peak at Wild Boy. His entire body tufted with straggly, matted brown fur, Wild Boy sulks in the uppermost chamber of the workhouse, peering down on London from the confines of his imprisonment. But when Finch snatches him away from the solitary glumness of the workhouse, only to ram him into a cart full of submissive and melancholic freaks, Wild Boy’s life seems anything but improved. Before long he’s falsely accused of murder, and Wild Boy must flee the whirling colors of circus life in favor of London’s sewers. Will young acrobat Clarissa Everett aid Wild Boy in his quest for justice, or will her fiery hatred of freaks shatter Wild Boy’s chances of acquittal?
Opinion:
In Wild Boy, Rob-Lloyd Jones excels in crafting characters who both irritate and enamour the reader; unlike the household Mary Sue, all too ubiquitous in children’s literature, neither Wild boy nor Clarissa bore the reader with excessive virtue, nor do they repulse him with a glut of vice. Clarissa’s fiery retorts temper her jaw-dropping acrobatic prowess, while Wild Boy’s inextinguishable desire for justice balances a fighting streak a mile wide. Active verbs pepper Jones’ prose, and the novel’s aglow with vivid imagery. Luxuriant in its detail, the historic setting immerses readers in cutthroat Victorian London. Wild Boy by Rob-Lloyd Jones sings with emotion and sparkles with the thrill of a bygone era.
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